8.1: Metabolism
Teaching time allocated: 4 hours
Practical time allocated: 0 hours (potential dB work)
Key Vocab
Exercise 1: Complete the learn activity for the below quizlet deck. You can review these terms using any of the other activities at any stage as you work through this section. Science suggests that daily review helps long term memory.
prior learning & retrieval practice
Exercise 2: Before beginning this section make sure review these quizlet decks. You can review these terms using any of the other activities at any stage as you work through this section. Science suggests that daily review helps long term memory.
Review 2.5 Enzymes
Review 2.4 Proteins
Metabolic pathways
Essential idea: Metabolic reactions are regulated in response to the cell’s needs.
U1: Metabolic pathways consist of chains and cycles of enzyme-catalysed reactions.
Exercise 3: Answer the following questions following reading or research using your biology textbook or the standard reference websites.
Describe what is meant by the term metabolic "pathway".
What is a "chain" or a "cycle" in a metabolic "pathway"?
What is the role of enzymes in this pathway?
enzymes & activation energy
U2: Enzymes lower the activation energy of the chemical reactions that they catalyse.
Exercise 4: Answer the following questions following reading or research using your biology textbook or the standard reference websites.
What is activation energy of a chemical reaction?
How do enzymes lower it?
How does this allow them to speed up chemical reactions?
rates of reaction
S1: Calculating and plotting rates of reaction from raw experimental results.
Exercise 5: Work through the BBC bitesize section on rates of reaction calculation
competitive & non competitive inhibition
U3: Enzyme inhibitors can be competitive or non-competitive.
Guidance: Enzyme inhibition should be studied using one specific example for competitive and non-competitive inhibition.
Exercise 6: Make a presentation and record a screencast that compares competitive and non-competitive inhibition. Provide an example of both in your presentation
S2: Distinguishing different types of inhibition from graphs at specified substrate concentration.
Exercise 7: Can you identify the types of inhibition occurring in these reactions and explain why?
end product inhibition
U4: Metabolic pathways can be controlled by end-product inhibition.
A1: End-product inhibition of the pathway that converts threonine to isoleucine.
Exercise 8: Explain how metabolic pathways are controlled by end-product inhibition. Why does end-product inhibition allow cells to control metabolic pathways?
Use the example of the pathway from threonine to isoleucine to explain your answer.
USe of databases
NoS: Developments in scientific research follow improvements in computing—developments in bioinformatics, such as the interrogation of databases, have facilitated research into metabolic pathways. (3.8)
A2: Use of databases to identify potential new anti-malarial drugs.
Exercise 9: What is malaria? Explain how databases are used to identify potential new anti-malarial drugs.
